Traces of the French Foreign Legion in Morocco
 

Two memorial plaques and Ksar Amjouz

If you are on the N13 just north of Errachidia, there's an interesting diversion to a ruined ksar dating back to the 13th century, and a couple of momentos from the French Foreign Legion that are getting close to 100 years old.

From Algeria, the French already had good access to the run of Tafilalat oases (Erfoud, Rissani and then into Algeria), but wanted to link this holding across to Fez, so in the 1920s they constructed an unmetalled road which for much of its route followed the left (eastern) bank of the Ziz river.

This was built by the French Army's Engineering Arm (l'arme du génie) which even now encompasses such roles as coastguards and fire brigades. The 3rd Foreign Legion of combat engineers (aka Companie Sapeur Pompiers) used petrol-powered steam hammers to blast through the rocks to create 'The Legionnaires' tunnel (Tunnel Zaabal) that you pass through south of Er Rich.
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When the construction of the Al-Hassan Addakhil dam started in the 1960s it was necessary to reroute what is now the N13 (directions are if you are coming from the north) so the road now crosses from the left bank to the right (west) over a fairly modern looking bridge. Just before the bridge take the short track on the left that rejoins the asphalt of the original Foreign Legion route and continue south. See map below.

You will get views of the Ziz gorge that others don't get to see nowadays per photo below. Carry on for perhaps 5km and take the right fork in the road where you will see the ruined Ksar Amzouj. I found this fortified village well worth exploring with several interesting rooms. You can't get much further on that fork of the road as it disappears into a stream bed, but further down there's a Legion lookout tower that you can see from the N13 road.

As you head back towards the main road, look across to the road that had forked left and you will see a plaque carved in the cliff. This commemorates the work of the 3rd Legion constructing the road in March-April 1928. The emblem in the centre of the plaque is the 'grenade with seven flames' of the Legion.

And then as you reach the bend, park up and walk round to the other side of the pile of rocks and you will find another carving.

As you can see on the map I did try exploring the left hand fork further and it was going up and up into the mountains and I turned back. Maybe another day. And it would be interesting to try to find the other end of the right hand fork which presumably was headed for Er Rachidia.

Legion road and bridge traces north of Erfoud

Below Er Rachidia, what was the N13 changed some years ago to become the new RN17 which continues on the Erfoud and Merzouga.

The video below is of the artesian well of Borj Yerdi. I thought it was a geyser, a far more exciting name, but it seems geysers are sporadic, whilst artesian wells are constant flow, the pressurised water being brought to the surface from an aquifer far below.



The well is on the western side of the RN17, about 100m off the road, so easy to find, the waypoint is N31° 33.929' W4° 11.337'

About 5km south of the well, on the eastern side of the RN17, the French combat engineers constructed a bridge over the Ziz river. Remains of the abutments and piers stand proud, but the exciting thing for me was to see the original Legion road surface from close on 100 years ago.

Waypoint 31°31'25.8"N 4°11'10.8"W

The Legion road is about 2.5m wide, so wide enough for wagons, but clearly not designed for two-way traffic!

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FORT ARGANA

Nowadays if you want to travel from Marrakech to Agadir, the obvious choices are the RN11 national road or the A3 toll autoroute. But when I first visited in 1972 neither of these roads existed, as you can see from the photo of the Michelin 169 map at the bottom of this post.

The choice was either the P10 to Essaouira and then down the coast, or the S501 over the Tizi n'Test and then the P32 west. [In those days, roads were classified as 'P' principle or 'S' secondaire]

There was a road of sorts down the middle, but it was unclassified and marked as not to be taken after rain. Originally this road would have been a mule track and this is where the French Foreign Legion chose to site Fort Argana controlling the western High Atlas.

The fort is just to the east of the A3 and RN11, conveniently close to exits, with a waypoint of N30° 46.600' W9° 07.430' Some parts of the fort have been renovated, but not the interior.



INZERKI APIARY

Nearby, after a 6km off-tarmac ride at the western side of the two roads is the traditional apiary of Inzerki at waypoint N30° 47.937' W9° 11.533' The apiary was built in the 1850s and is a structure that takes the cylindrically-shaped bee hives of Morocco. This apiary together a second one 400m away has the capacity to take 2,160 hives and a potential population of tens of millions of bees.

More information and photos





1972 MAP BELOW

Absolutely, and the carved plaques are great!